Grace Scott

1929 - 2022

Grace Scott, 92, of Elkins Park, a devoted mother, wife, prominent social worker and member of the Mount Airy Church of God in Christ of Philadelphia, passed away Tuesday, January 4, 2022. Born at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Hospital on August 16, 1929, the long-time Cheltenham Township resident, including in Wyncote, succumbed to heart disease at Jefferson Abington Hospital where her husband, the late Henry Scott, M.D, passed on Thanksgiving Day in 2008. Scott had been retired as a long-time social worker at the Women’s Christian Alliance in North Philadelphia where she was a supervisor in the foster care division. She previously worked at the Pentagon in Washington, DC as an administrative assistant during the early 1960s while her husband attended medical school at Howard University. While at the Pentagon, she developed a nearly lifelong friendship with coworker Emily Catherine Porter who would one day serve as an assistant to the first African American U.S. Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall. Always an advocate for the less fortunate, one of her most fulfilling and inspirational times in Washington came in 1963 when she attended the “March on Washington” featuring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech. She said the event helped to inspire her future career in social work. The family relocated back to Philadelphia during the mid-1960s where she helped her husband establish a very successful general-practice medical enterprise in Philadelphia’s Tioga section, often providing her administrative expertise. As a humanitarian concerned about poverty and social conditions, Grace as an older adult pursued a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Lincoln University near Oxford, Pa., and master’s from Philly’s Temple University in social work during the late 1970s and early 1980s, receiving the highest honors at both colleges upon graduating. During her career at the Women’s Christian Alliance, she received accolades for her steadfast determination to protect the rights of foster-care children and ensure that they lived in humane conditions. She relished being the voice and protector of society’s most vulnerable children. Grace (nee Middleton) Scott was initially raised in nearby South Philadelphia by William and Emma Lou Middleton with Sea Island and other roots to South Carolina and Georgia as the fourth of nearly a dozen siblings. The family moved to Philadelphia during the mid-1920s and “Great Migration” of blacks from the South due to the racism of the Jim Crow era. Although she acknowledged that it was often very hard to “make ends meet” while her father William supported the large family as a longshoreman at the Philadelphia waterfront, the family was close-knit and God-fearing. In Philadelphia, the growing family attended the historic Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, an essential institution in the black community that sensitized her to the needs of African Americans and others. Already an avid reader in grade and high school (William Penn), she was very active at the College Settlement House and associated camp, as a maturing young lady. In fact, it was at an early social gathering sponsored by the agency where she first met her future husband, Henry Scott, before greeting each other again at a picnic in Fairmount Park, the beginning of a relationship that would consummate nearly 60 years of marriage. The couple became very active members of Zion Baptist Church at Broad and Venango streets in Philly’s Tioga community starting with the pastorship of the Rev. Dr. Leon Sullivan. She was enthusiastically involved in several auxiliary groups, the church choirs and Sullivan’s extremely successful OIC (Opportunities Industrialization Centers) that empowered African-descended people worldwide and helped to disintegrate apartheid in South Africa. Other church activities included hand praise (sign language) and participating in various “senior” organizations at Zion and Mount Airy. Beyond church, she loved playing the flute, traveling to medical conventions and other events, including Broadway plays, family gatherings and crocheting. Close to her eight sisters and two brothers, Scott savored trips with several of them to the South Carolina Sea Islands in recent years. She was especially impressed with exploring her Gullah-Geechee ancestry and ties to the historic Penn School on St. Helena Island, just north of where her paternal Middleton and Mitchell ancestors had been enslaved on Spring Island from the late 1700s. Several were among the first black soldiers to fight for the Union in the Civil War. A century later, Rev. King and his associates would strategize at the school. Indeed, often thought of as “Amazing Grace” because of her outstanding fortitude and determination, she was exceptionally proud of raising four surviving sons, Donald Scott, Sr. (Willetta), David Scott (Eloise), Henry Jr., Esq. (Claudia) and L. Glenn Scott, Esq., all college graduates with advanced degrees. She was predeceased by her husband, Henry Scott, M.D., parents, William and Emma Lou (Hall), and siblings James Middleton (Bernice), John Middleton, Mary Kelly (Prince), Eleanor Stepney (James), E loise Johnson (Willie), Elizabeth Spann (John), Lynette Mamie Frisby (Clarence) and brother-in-law Shelby Sullivan. Surviving siblings include Mabel Byrd and Ruth Sullivan (Shelby). She is also survived by grandchildren Donald Scott, Jr. (Jacinta), Kristopher Henry Scott (Bonnie), Sabriya Scott-Caffrey, M.D. (James), Joshua Roderick Scott (Gloria), and Leah Kristina Scott, as well as great grandchildren, nephews, nieces and special friends. Funeral arrangements via Beckett-Brown and Hodges Funeral Home will include a graveside service on Friday, January 14, noontime, at the Ivy Hill Cemetery, 1201 Easton Road, Philadelphia, as well as a memorial service at a later date. Details will be announced. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Black Doctors Consortium c/o Grace Scott, attention Karol Mason, 419 Johnson Street, Jenkintown, PA 19046 or https://gofundme.com/f/covid19-BDCC.